The place isn’t far from here.
I saw it from the rocket as we landed.”
“Here!
What are you talking about so seriously?”
Mrs. Hathaway ladled quick spoons of soup into their bowls.
“Smile now; we’re all together, the trip’s over, and it’s like home!”
“Yes.”
Captain Wilder laughed.
“You certainly look very well and young Mrs. Hathaway!”
“Isn’t that like a man!”
He watched her drift away, drift with her pink face warm, smooth as an apple, unwrinkled and colorful.
She chimed her laugh at every joke, she tossed salads neatly, never once pausing for breath.
And the bony son and curved daughters were brilliantly witty, like their father, telling of the long years and their secret life, while their father nodded proudly to each.
Williamson slipped off down the hill.
“Where’s he going?” asked Hathaway.
“Checking the rocket,” said Wilder.
“But, as I was saying, Hathaway, there’s nothing on Jupiter, nothing at all for men.
That includes Saturn and Pluto.”
Wilder talked mechanically, not hearing his words, thinking only of Williamson running down the hill and climbing back to tell what he had found.
“Thanks.”
Marguerite Hathaway was filling his water glass.
Impulsively he touched her arm.
She did not even mind.
Her flesh was warm and soft.
Hathaway, across the table, paused several times, touched his chest with his fingers, painfully, then went on listening to the murmuring talk and sudden loud chattering, glancing now and again with concern at Wilder, who did not seem to like chewing his gingerbread.
Williamson returned.
He sat picking at his food until the captain whispered aside to him,
“Well?”
“I found it, sir.”
“And?”
Williamson’s cheeks were white.
He kept his eyes on the laughing people.
The daughters were smiling gravely and the son was telling a joke.
Williamson said, “I went into the graveyard.”
“The four crosses were there?”
“The four crosses were there, sir.
The names were still on them.
I wrote them down to be sure.”
He read from a white paper: “Alice, Marguerite, Susan, and John Hathaway.
Died of unknown virus.
July 2007.”
“Thank you, Williamson.”
Wilder closed his eyes.
“Nineteen years ago, sir,” Williamson’s hand trembled.
“Yes.”
“Then who are these!”
“I don’t know.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Will we tell the other men?”